In a Sea of Troubles


Written by S.G. Jilanee • Region • November 2009

The old saying, that Pakistan faces a crisis as never before, was never truer.Yes, we heard it said so many times that it now sounds like a cliché. Every new government that came into power routinely began by claiming that the problems it had to grapple with were the legacy from its predecessor, warning, that "the country is facing a crisis as never before" that called for national unity, "as never before."

But, today it is truer because the country had never before been subjected to such frequent suicide bombings, or full scale war within the country. Only in the first three weeks of October, there have been at least five incidents of suicide attacks.

On October 5, a suicide bomber entered a highly fortified United Nations office of World Food Programme in Islamabad, killing five of its staff in an explosion. Two days later, a huge explosion ripped through the historic Khyber Bazaar in Peshawar that killed at least 49 people and wounded over 100. Four of the injured later died in the hospital raising the total number of fatalities to 53.

And the next day, there was a daring attack on the Pakistan army's sanctum sanctorum - the GHQ, itself. Altogether 20 people were killed in the attack, including a brigadier and a lieutenant colonel. The militants also took 42 hostages, 33 of whom were ultimately rescued, after about 18 hours, by a commando action. Nine were killed. One of the 10 militants was captured alive and two escaped; the rest were killed. In between these major incidents were attacks on NATO supply convoys.

TTP spokesman, Azam Tariq, talking to the Associated Press claimed responsibility for the attack. He told the news agency that this was their "first small effort and a present to the Pakistani and American governments, in a planned wave of strikes intended to avenge the killing of Baitullah Mehsud." More ominously, he was reported as saying that "the raid on army headquarters was carried out by a Punjabi faction of the TTP and it had given orders to its branches in Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP to launch similar operations.

Even after the attack on Pakistan's Pentagon there was no let up. Two days later, a suicide blast in a market in the Alpuri area in the Shangla district, east of Swat, killed 41 people and left more than 45 wounded. An army vehicle was set on fire, challenging the army's credibility that it has pacified Swat.

And on October 20, two explosions occurred in, what seemed to be, one of the most unlikely places - the Islamic International University in Islamabad, killing six people and wounding about 40. Two days later an army brigadier, deputy director-general of operations, and reportedly among the masterminds behind the ongoing campaign, was gunned down in Islamabad by unknown assailants.

No official inquiry has been instituted into the attack on the GHQ. But, following the blasts in the Islamic University, the army closed all educational institutions it runs across the country for five days. Provincial governments followed suit mutatis mutandis.

Meanwhile, police was raiding madrassahs in Islamabad and Southern Punjab to capture terrorists. Interior Minister Malik wanted Afghan imams removed from all mosques. Yet, these incidents were "small" issues, often dismissed with a few cavalier statements from the Interior Minister, such as "the terrorists shall never succeed in their vile plans."

The bigger issue is the military expedition in South Waziristan that some analysts have already begun to bill as the "mother of all battles." Veteran civil servant Roedad Khan warns that, "With this operation Pakistan is launched on the path to a protracted, inconclusive war in the mountains of Waziristan." It is a tragic error, he claims, recalling how the British tried to pacify the area for many years but failed.

But withal, his assessment may be erroneous. The situation today is quite different from what it was during the British times. They did not have the advantage of formidable air power and night goggles for instance.

So, with infantry, artillery and air support, the army was pounding away at the militants in a full blown "invasion" of the Mahsud tribal area. Besieged from all sides, the militants were reported to be putting up stiff resistance.

Army spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, said two days after the operation began that "68 militants and nine soldiers had died." But Taliban said many more soldiers were killed than reported. The claims were not independently verifiable, as no journalist - local or foreign, was allowed in the battle area.

The Guardian meanwhile reported that Taliban claimed having inflicted "heavy casualties that forced the invading soldiers back into their bases." It quoted Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq telling the Associated Press, "We know how to fight this war and defeat the enemy with the minimum loss of our men."

As the battle intensified, a stream of internally displaced people (IDPs) was moving into the adjacent Dera Ismail Khan. According to some sources, over 100,000 had already arrived. More were expected to follow as the battle intensified. But the urgency that the authorities displayed on the influx of refugees in the case of Swat operation was missing in this case, perhaps because the population of South Waziristan is much smaller and therefore may not pose as big a problem.

There also were disturbing accounts of indiscriminate shelling by warplanes given by the fleeing IDPs to Guardian correspondent Declan Walsh. The army must watch its flank because its record in Swat, too, had similar smears. If such reports increase the army might lose the popular support it enjoys at present.

Along with the advance into the "enemy territory," the army made deals and enlisted the support of tribal leader hostile to Hakimullah Mahsud. Leaflets in Pashto and Urdu were dropped from the air in the battle zone, with a message from the army chief reassuring the people that the operation was not against them but to release them from the grip of terrorists.

The feigned furor over the Kerry Lugar Bill had practically subsided. In the National Assembly, foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi, went lyrical in his hosannas for the Bill, "singing hymns unbidden", like Shelley's skylark. Some analysts attributed the FM's rapture to the employment of his son, Zain Qureshi, as a "legislative fellow" in Sen. Kerry's Washington D.C. office.

Among other developments was the news that the government had sold 1,000 acres of land to the USA near Thatta, stirring speculations about a US base coming up. Reports that US "trainers" had taken virtual control of the Police Training College at Sihala, within a stone's throw of the A Q Khan Laboratory at Kahuta was, like all similar reports, denied by the US embassy.

But, suspicion, fed by recent events, about US intentions persists. Some analyst go as far as predicting that America would use the current state of instability in Pakistan to introduce a resolution in the UN Security Council to put Pakistan's nuclear assets under UN control.

The most recent attack on Iran's Revolutionary Guards, by Jundullah, that killed about 42 people including senior commanders in Seistan and has shaken Pak-Iran relations to its foundations, is perceived as another proof, because Jundallah has its headquarters in Balochistan. And its commander, Abdul Malek Regi, is understood to be in cahoots with the CIA. How Pakistan manages to keep its head above the water in this rough sea would be a spectacle of a lifetime for historians.